Patch Notes are Here!

The update's here. And that means a list of things that were changed. Here's what's new in the world of Ashen Empires.

OneEye posted in 10/25 Patch Notes:

New Store Items
-Halloween Pack. A mask pack to turn you into your favorite halloween monsters. Halloween themed house items.

-Wedding Set. Wedding themed armor and clothing.

-Thanksgiving Set. A mask pack to turn you into a turkey, indian and pilgrim. Thanksgiving themed clothing items.

-Advanced Skill Reset. Reset all skills from level 106+.

Features
-Low/mid dungeon. Dalvon Mine has been taken over by some pesky kobolds.
-Ryonkah has made a comeback
-Tailoring taskmaster is functional.
-Memorial to former TKO-artist Brian Smith added.
-One time city alignment reset
-Eggs are now purchasable in some stores
-Dairy Cow added

Bugs and Changes
-Several spawns adjusted, including many lower level SoC spawns
-Treasure drop tables adjusted for very high end creatures
-Several armor/weapons adjusted to be more inline with their level range.

Click on the link above to get the list of bug fixes. Happy hunting :)

Update for 10/25

It's about time we had another update. OneEye's announced it, so it's officially expected now.

OneEye posted in Servers down for update 10/25:

The servers (H, L and Dransik) will be down for an update on Thursday, October 25th at 10am CST.

Things we're looking forward to include:

• Eggs back in stores! [Source]
  

• Woodrow (Problems with Bats scroll quest) will move from Lotor's Castle to Lotor's Summer Palace. [Source]

• The ability to change your faction patron via Lotor's Steward (also in Lotor's Summer Palace) [Source]

• The Wurm spawn around the spawngate in Dragons has been decreased. Should make it easier to survive at that spawngate. [Source]

And, of course, a list of bug fixes. Don't forget the Halloween Event as well.

Downtime, and Why It's Been Happening

In case you haven't noticed, or you've been living under a rock (like me), Heroes has had quite a lot of downtime lately. Naturally this raises quite a lot of concerns and complaints. Luckily, there has been some dev response on this. And quite a lot of it as well.

Zarquon told us what the issue was.

Zarquon posted in You're not alone:

The raid controller was timing out on the writes to the drive, thus forcing the drive to go offline. Our vender said there was a firmware upgrade for the raid controller that directly addresses this problem. We are taking his word, I just upgraded the firmware before bring the server back online.

For those that don't know, a RAID is a group of hard drives set up in such a way that they work together. RAIDs can speed up the transmission of data, keep the data in a reliable copy, or a combination of the two. They're mainly used to keep a server up if a hard drive fails. If the RAID controller fails, however, then you're screwed.

Fear not, as the compensation fairy seems to be polishing her Wand of Blessing...

FujiQ posted in You're not alone:

Hey Everyone,

We didn't get a page last night/this morning so I was the unhappy first IWG to find out H was down again. Please let me be very up front when I say that you aren't the only ones irked about the situation. We know it's frustrating and we're doing the best we can right now.

We'd like to make it up to you. However, it would be a little pointless to give you any sort of in game compensation until we know that the problem is fixed. Our vendor told us to upgrade the firmware so that's the step we're at now. If that fixes it, we'll let you know how the compensation is going to work out.

I'm so sorry for the inconvenience guys, I know it's frustrating. Thank you for your patience on this matter.

Sincerely,

FujiQ

Pay attention to the second paragraph. No word yet on what this compensation might be. But it's coming.

The Deal With Faction Quests

Catherine Firemane is a new member of our community that's stirring up some controversy with his (relatively) well thought out responses and participation on the forums. He recently asked a question and raised some issues with the LK/CK and Patron quests, focusing on why they were so different. OneEye responded to these issues.

OneEye posted in Task Masters:

Catherine, 2 and 3 of your points are as designed. Point 3 for example allows for lower levels to complete these quests with the same effort as higher levels and get rewarded with nice items. Most of the very early faction quest items are in fact intended for lower levels.

You are new so you don't know that AE players gravitate onto certain pet issues while ignoring all of the things that have been added or fixed. There were no taskmasters at all until earlier this year for example.

That certainly explains why the early items seem so powerless and perhaps why there are so few people actively taking a part in these quests. I think The Freshest Diva, though, sums up this latter point well, though:

The Freshest Diva said in Patron / LK quests - fix please:

You can't cancel patrons at all, even if you get something that is impossible, and you can and will.

For those of you saying it should be this impossible, have you seen the set? It's for collectors. It's not for use. Just a bunch of decorational pieces to wear in pride of your home city, perhaps in parades or events. It's not as if it will give your character any increase of power or wealth whatsoever.

Interesting how such a thing is one of the hardest things in the game to obtain.

It'd be nice if these items were a little better for the effort it takes to acquire them all. I'm up to something like 160 quests done and I'm only up to the +5orb helmet.

Help IWG Track Down the "Mage Casting" Bug

As a mage, I've never personally experienced this bug. But it seems that several players have and constantly hold the DEVs responsible. The problem has (always) been that the DEVs cannot reproduce the bug, so it's incredibly difficult to fix.

If you've got a sure-fire way to crash your client, it's best to try and find a way to reproduce it and then post about it. These are the best ways of getting a bug fixed; not just for Ashen Empires but ANY program.

So, if you think you've got the skillz that thrillz, post your steps in $ Constant Reminders $. It looks like OneEye's keeping an eye on it. Now's your chance to be heard.

10/11 Hotfix

A small hotfix to address some small bugs. Even one that had to deal with a particular, mischievous GM

OneEye posted in 10/11 Hotfix:

-Added Runecrafting Taskmaster
-Tweaked Leatherworking Taskmaster values
-Fixed several Shadow Quest issues
-Fixed several spelling errors
-Fixed Body Spells so Rauric can't crash the server again :)

You can read about how Rauric crashed the server in this thread.

Keep Your Eyes Open for Pvp

Just a small nugget of info. In a discussion about possible Pvp tournaments, OneEye had this to say:

OneEye posted in Supported Ongoing PvP Tournament:

There is something new coming for PvP very soon (for both servers)

The Taskmasters Dilemna

It's been almost a year since the taskmasters were first introduced to Ashen Empires. At first, they were met with some resistance as some people believed that this would mean more people doing crafts and less people providing the "quality experiences" that fewer tradeskillers meant to the community. Now it seems that everyone's at least had some experience with the taskmasters.

The problem, however, is that the taskmasters still aren't complete. Sure, there are several major skills covered. However, there remain a few that aren't. And some seem downright too demanding.

OneEye commented on the taskmaster design.

OneEye posted in Task Masters:

I've learned my lesson - never put anything in the game as a 'to be done later' feature.

-the reason it was done this way is I am able to hotfix the script behind NPCs who are alredy in the world, but adding an NPC requires a 'take down the server' update.

The impression I'm getting from this is that, at the very least, getting the NPC's in was a goal. As long as the NPC's were already in the world, OneEye could add the logic while the server was running and then simply announce that the taskmasters were ready. The alternative would have been that we would have had to wait for an update to see a new taskmaster or two.

So you have to ask yourself, which method would you have preferred? I can see the benefit of both.

Eggs are on their way back to stores.

A long time ago, you used to be able to buy eggs from stores. This made cake and pie making a lot easier, since clicking on chickens and only getting one egg at a time was...well....not as egg-siting as it sounded ;) But it seems we're due for some love in the next full update.

OneEye posted in Eggs in provision shops:

added chicken eggs to provisioner shops for next full update.

This might spell doom for those who enjoy clicking on chickens and selling quantities of eggs. But this, in turn, might mean more people getting into mixing again. And I'm all for not trying to find and trap chickens ;)

Got any reporting talent?

Looks like there's another opening for reporters. If you like to write for Ashen Empires, this is your chance to put your pen where your virtual parchment is.

FujiQ posted in AE Reporter Opening:

IWG will begin accepting applications to fill one spot on the AE Reporter team. To be considered, you must be an active and vocal community member with no past violations on your record. You also must be willing and able to write at least two articles a month, at a minimum of 250 words each, about various community and game events.

If you are chosen to become a reporter, you will receive a complimentary subscription. Your posts will appear on the AE Website as well.

Those interested in applying should send a sample piece of at least 250 words to support@ashenempires.com with the subject "AE Reporter Submission." Please tell us your player name in the same email. You may send plain text or an attached word document.

Good luck

Halloween Event set for October 30/31!

It's that time of year again. In a growing tradition, IWG will be holding it's 3rd annual Halloween event. This year, with more candy!

FujiQ posted in Halloween Event 2007:

Ready your weapons and clear your calendars, my friends, because this Halloween IWG invites you to a day of dungeon crawling, candy collecting, prize winning madness. It's going down at the Halloween dungeon which opens only once a year. New candy and new candy holders will be introduced to commemorate the 2007 event.

The Halloween dungeon, which is located in King Lotor's castle (not to be confused with Lotor's Summer Palace), will open twice on each server:

Tuesday the 30th
Legends: 10am-12pm CST, 3pm-5pm UTC
Heroes: 5pm-7pm CST, 10pm-12am UTC

Wednesday the 31st
Heroes: 10am-12pm CST, 3pm-5pm UTC
Legends: 5pm-7pm CST, 10pm-12am UTC

For more time conversions, you can use this website.

Hoping they'll do one on a Saturday...See you there! :)

No Server Downtime After All!

Remember that downtime we were supposed to have?

Burning Spear posted in No Server Downtime 10/4/2007:

We managed to update everything without having to bring down the game servers.

Assuming we don't discover a problem in the next hour or so there should be no down time.

Gotta love the new hotfix system :)

Look out for Thursday Downtime!! :(

One has to wonder what the impact of this downtime will be.

OneEye posted in System Downtime 10/4/2007:

Ashen Empires and Dransik will be down starting at:

09:00:00 Thursday October 4, 2007 CST / 14:00:00 Thursday October 4, 2007 GMT

This downtime is for routine maintenance. Stay tuned to the forums during the downtime for periodic updates on when the servers will be back and available.

Maybe while the servers are down, they'll give us some details on what they've been working on. I'm especially interested to find out if they have another Halloween event planned and what it might entail. :)